GSC In-Game Tiers Revamp - Closed, I'll be starting this up again after I figure some stuff out

I guess a level 15 Ariados isn't completely out of the question if you really wanted to use one, though I don't think it puts it any higher than say, Beedrill from the Bug Catching contest, which can be caught at around the same level (12-15).

What do you think about this for Spinarak's summary then?Spinarak
Ariados be caught as a decent level 15 in Crystal right before Ecruteak City, but it is still extremely weak in battle until gaining the Sludge Bomb TM much later. Even with Sludge Bomb, its low speed makes it tricky to raise and battle efficiently, and its only other viable attacks are Return and Dig.

Also, since you mentioned Butterfree:Caterpie
Though it can be caught fully evolved, Butterfree is stuck with a non-STAB Confusion as its only viable attack until level 34 where it learns Psybeam which is only slightly stronger. Because its attacks are weak and it cannot take hits well, it relies overly on Sleep Powder to stand up to most strong enemies. Overall, a very poor option.

Nearly all the bugs in the game besides Heracross, Scyther, or Scizor are pretty low due to their horribly low base stats, and very shallow move pool. There's also not much STAB to get, without any good bug attacks in gen 2, and sludge bomb coming pretty late.

I don't know about that; Heracross can't really brag about having a much better learnpool than Venomoth or Beedrill. The difference in base stats is big enough however, and make Heracross, Scyther and Pinsir stand out.

Well Heracross gets a decent horn attack at level 6, but I know what you mean. The difference though, is that in gen 2 it's so easy to get physical TMs, (heabutt, return), that even Missingno would be a decent poke because of its high attack.

Scyther is first because of its great speed and attack, and actual access to a STAB attack. Heracross is higher than Pinsir since it has a better level up movepool and also megahorn. Butterfree is pretty useful because of early game confusion and powders. Ariados and Beedrill are roughly similar since while Ariados has higher attack, Beedrill has the decent STAB twineedle at level 20. Finally, while Venonat has a decent level up movepool, its stats are just too weak, and it isn't worth it to level it up to level 31.

If playing with a full party (5-6 mons), Heracross's move problems are really big. He's not learning Reversal for the E4 and might not have Megahorn for Red. He also wants Earthquake to hit anything super-effectively at all.

Heracross gets Reversal at 44 and Megahorn at 54, which means you should have those moves without too much grinding. Shuckle is probably better than Yanma since you get one for free instead of finding a swarm poke, and Shuckle also makes an excellent meatshield (even untrained) to let you heal up your other pokemon.

I was not aware that Venemoth could be caught in Crystal since they only appeared on one route at night with a 5% but in crystal, Venomoth is a much better Bug than Butterfree (higher spA and moves). Sludge bomb is physical, so not that really suited for Venemoth, and waiting for TMs in Kanto is a bit too far, considering Kanto will be breezed through whereas Johto is the main meat of the game.

1. If Espeon is leveled from Eevee at the right time, which is pretty easy, you have a 10 level window and lots of ways to boost happiness through haircuts and whatnot it can use it's amazing special attack stat and speed to hit 13/15 of the first three elite four members pokes for super effective damage. One of which is Onix which is KO'd by your Psybeam anyway, and this is with no TMs. Should be right near the top.

2. Geodude, even without evolving to Golem is able to beat pretty much all of the early gyms on its own, as well as do well against later opponents. It gets rock throw at 11, and from there smashes everything.

Eevee has 70 base happiness and you need to gain 150 happiness for the thing to evolve. Don't see how that's easy to achieve in 10 levels: levels will provide a maximum of +42 (it's slightly different in Crystal due to some factor that doubles happiness when the Pokemon gains happiness in the level which it is met... something that will most likely never apply for Eevee). You gain 2.5 happiness on average for the Sun/Wed/Fri barber, and 2 happiness on average for the Tue/Thu/Sat barber. At an average rate of 13.5 happiness per week, you'll have to be visiting the barbers for 8 weeks, on average in order for Eevee to make up for the remaining 108 happiness. That, or if you grind money for stat boosters, or if you somehow decide to spend hours biking up and down Goldenrod.

tl;dr: getting eevee to evolve in 10 levels is hardly 'easy'. sure, the reward is espeon, which is pretty damn good for an in-game pokemon, hence high is justified. top? nuh-uh. remember that we are also not assuming emus, so you won't be able to have your x20 turbo through the happiness grinding.

geodude is amazing nuff said
even in late-game explosion utility is still pretty good since graveler is going to survive everything that isn't a water or grass attack anyway

@TA: heracross is really only getting megahorn at kanto (i'm not really sure how badly does the average player need to overgrind for dragonites, but with ice punch tms floating about everywhere dnite shouldn't be THAT horrible, especially when decently levelled mons shouldn't have issues getting 1hko'd (and should ideally be able to outrun the nites). if he's getting reversal in/for E4, that thing is most likely useless anyway (yeah karen is so going to get killed when she has a resist, an immune, and a pokemon that just outright roasts heracross. funny, isn't it?). too bad even scyther has issues in GSC, and pinsir is already pretty mediocre... heracross is just a pokemon that's really, at the end of the day, "top tier" amongst a group of pokemon that are still "shit", as far as in-game purposes are considered.

Aw, no discussion or progress? I guess I'll try to add some more stimulus:

Yanma
Almost nothing redeeming can be said about Yanma. Its defenses are extremely low and it learns no decent attacks in Johto--in fact, for most of the game, its best way of dealing damage is through Sonicboom or a lucky Hidden Power type. It is also a pain to find and train, being rare outside of swarms and encountered at level 12.Aipom
Aipom is basically a weaker Raticate that doesn't learn any viable moves by level-up. It is usable in the sense that it can be taught STAB Headbutt right after you can encounter it (and eventually Return), but so can every other normal typed Pokemon in the game, many of which are available at the same time that Aipom can first be encountered. Catching it at level 10 also kills a lot of its usefulness. It can be used as a Strength/Cut/Rock Smash slave, but that's about it.

Ditto
The worst part about trying to use a Ditto is how hard it is to train it. Ditto will always effectively move second, is not guaranteed to outspeed the opponent after transforming and uses the attack (and defense) stats of the Pokemon it transforms into, meaning it cannot grind efficiently like other Pokemon. These traits also make it mostly useless in battles. Ironically, one of the more practical ways to raise a Ditto is to keep it in the daycare, by which point you could have bred a ton of superior Pokemon through eggs anyway.

To my knowledge, all types of wild Pokemon have the same base happiness. So yeah, Return won't exactly be Earthquake-quality at the beginning--it's actually more practical to teach it (and all the other early-game normal Pokemon) Headbutt when you first catch it. I'll amend my little blurb to reflect that.

Scyther has to be at least high, and I really think top, tier. Let me explain by going through the 4 objections - he's only available 3 days a week, he's hard to find and catch in the bug catching contest, he has a bad movepool, and a typing which limits his usefulness.

1. Scyther is only available 3 days a week - this objection loses a lot of steam when you realize that you set the day on GSC (its not automatically set). That makes its very easy to ensure there's a bug catching contest the first time you get to the National Park. There are 2 other reasons this isn't actually a problem: Scyther isn't very useful against Whitney, so his utility is not hurt if you have to wait until the next day after defeating to catch him. Even in the worst case scenario (which never has to happen since you set the day), and its Sunday when you get to Goldenrod and you have to wait 2 days to catch scyther, he's so useful in the late game, and he gains levels pretty fast, so an under-leveled scyther is still worth training.

2. Scyther is hard to find and catch in the contest - This objection is best one and would be more valid if scyther wan't so good in-game. If you go into the catching contest to catch only a scyther than you will catch one. You would have to be very unlucky not to find one within 10 minutes. If you save all your pokeballs for catching him, you would again have to be super unlucky not to on the first try.

3. Scyther's typing makes him weak to a lot of moves - This criticism doesn't see the big picture with scyther. When you get scyther it has amazing stats, esp in attack and speed, but scyther's 70/80/80 defenses are amazing in the early and mid game (Bayleef's defenses are 60/80/80) and actually pretty good later too, esp for a poke with such high speed. It is one of the bulkiest pokemon you have access to for awhile. Scyther might be weak to many types, but (besides rock attacks) he actually can take SE attacks from most pokemon until the late game. He doesn't even have that much trouble with Pryce, though I'd sooner use a dif pokemon (point taken for Jasmine and Marty).

4. Scyther has a bad movepool, relying on headbutt to do damage (fury cutter is dumb IMO) until wing attack at level 30 - again, this criticism misses the point with scyther. Remember that in GSC, there are far fewer super-powered moves. In my experience headbutt just destroys everything that isn't defended from it and also doesn't have a high defense. The 30% flinch rate is also noticeably good. Totodile, who is in the top tier, is stuck with water gun as stab for a while (bite and headbutt both do more damage than it most of the time because of his super high attack). When scythor does learn wing attack, which is in time for the Cianwood gym, he is totally powerful enough for the mid-game. Between headbutt and wing attack and his amazing stats, you never notice a time when scyther is lagging behind your team in terms of damage output or defenses. He is usually ahead of most your pokemon. He is very helpful against Blackthorn gym. At level 42 (which is around what you should be when you get to the elite four assuming you have a team of 3-4 pokemon) scyther learns swords dance. He is then able to destroy the entire elite four, including Lance, only having to worry abt a couple random fire and rock pokemon.

To put things in perspective: HGSS scyther is in the god tier according to smogon's in game list. While GSC scyther doesn't have technician, the power creep from GSC to HGSS (where totodile, for example, has physical water moves) is so big that technician scyther is not much better than GSC scyther in game. GSC scyther is also easier to catch the HGSS scyther, because 1/2 of them will have swarm as an ability and the HGSS calendar is automatic (which means there's a bigger risk of getting to Goldenrod on sunday). Scyther levels up fast, destroys route-trainers, and while he struggles against some badges, can honestly can take out the elite four and blackthorn with much less effort than almost any other single pokemon. He makes the game easier than any pokemon you can catch, with the exception of the box legends. Magmar, who is listed as top, is a lot less useful against the elite four, than scyther (though I agree Magmar should be in top).

Wooper should also be in the high tier IMO, and probably Vapreon and Lapras should be in mid and high-mid, respectively. Vaporeon depends on fisherman tully giving you a water stone, and sometimes he takes forever to do that. I don't think we can say that a player will reliably get a waterstone in time for Vappy to be that great. Maybe everyone else has a better experience of this than I do, but Tully usually doesn't give me a stone til I'm at or after the elite four. As for Lapras, I know I just made a massive point abt you being able to set the day, but Lapras is available only on 1 day a week, and later in the game than scyther, so its not as easy to predict what day you should set your GSC calendar for. If you don't get surf by a Friday that's near the start of your run through, then lapras will almost def. come to you underleveled (at 20) and is in the Slow exp group, which sucks for raising it up levels. While its stab ice attacks are nice, it is by no means needed for you to have ice attacks powerful enough to beat Lance and Claire easily because of icepunch TM, which means that its not really worth backtracking for.

Wooper, on the other hand, is the definition of high. Its in the medium-fast group, it comes with water gun, is the best poke to teach mudslap to. it reaches its final form at a low level, learns earthquake on its own, and learns ice-punch by tm and surf very soon by hm. It also makes a great poke to give dig and rollout tms too. It has only 1, rare, weakness. It is available early and does just fine against bugsy (if you picked chikorita otherwise your starter is better). Its ground typing makes it one of the better pokes against Miltank (get a female wooper). It is great against Marty (dig is strong), not terrible against Chuck, great against Jasmine. With rollout and surf it beats Pryce easily and can do good damage to Claire's dragonair's with icepunch. In the elite four it can does ok against some of Will's poke but is very good against Koga (keep it away from Ariados' giga drain) is fine against Bruno because of its decent bulk. Its not great against Karen (kinda like Will) but with roll out and ice punch it can help a lot with Lance. The only reason its not in top is its low speed which means that you have to use lots of potions on it at the E4, but really, unlike Vaporeon and Lapras, Wooper is easy to get, and available very early. It learns great moves from TMs no one else really wants, does an admirable job of serving as both a water and a ground type for your team. In my opinion it is better than the nidos in many ways, having access to stab ground attacks in the form of dig and a pretty early earthquake throughout the game (unlike Nidos who have to wait for the earthquake tm). Its ground attacks make beating team rocket pretty darn easy. While it isn't as good as geodude in the early game, and maybe not quite as good as the nido's in the late game, its better than either on average, and needs no babying at all (the nidos are pretty weak when you get them and wish they had a ground attack for Jasmine and team rocket). It also trains really well in the sea outside of Jasmine's gym (with all the tentacools), which is a great place to level up a pokemon that is lagging for some reason. While it isn't the best water type or the best ground type its dual typing, great movepool, and ease of capture make useful enough to be High tier.

Bug is neutral against ground, so Scyther will slaughter Wooper very quickly. Its speed is abysmal (while Pokemon with middling speed are very usable thanks to generally having a level advantage, Quagsire's level advantage won't be enough) and that makes some of its strengths less vivid. For example, Koffings and Weezings will still explode in its face before it launches its SE STAB. Morty is not the best matchup either, since you go last and take two turns to Dig, so you take a whole lot of damage from Curse (half of your health gone just to kill one ghost). Anyone fast enough and not dependent on Dig is better for the gym, normal-types especially. Rollout doesn't see any good usage considering Quagsire is so slow and, as you mentioned yourself, needs Potions to survive the Elite Four - potions and Rollout are mutually exclusive. At least I can understand the value of fast mons like Quilava having Rollout access (though I still don't bother with the move much).

Oh, I'm not even kidding but Quagsire's only advantage over the Nidos is its access to Sludge Bomb (and Dig I guess, but using Dig still takes time, time in which the foes could boost their defence or evasion among other things). They still get more punches, better offensive stats and Shadow Ball.

Defending Scyther is something I've previously indulged in but I don't think he's anywhere close to being Top at all, and I believe you're grossly exaggerating his strengths.

To put things in perspective: HGSS scyther is in the god tier according to smogon's in game list. While GSC scyther doesn't have technician, the power creep from GSC to HGSS (where totodile, for example, has physical water moves) is so big that technician scyther is not much better than GSC scyther in game.

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A minor point, but this underestimates Scyther's changes between the generations.

HG/SS Technician Scyther gets a STAB, Technician-boosted Wing Attack at level 21, while in GSC, it gets it at level 30. This is basically Wing Attack after Whitney or Jasmine - a very big difference. Pursuit also hits off its better Attack stat, as Dark was a Special move back in GSC, making it a good fallback option in HG/SS. Headbutt being a tutor move in HG/SS also really helps, as $2000 is not an insignificant amount of money to spend in GSC at that point in the game to get a second Headbutt TM (many Pokémon could use it at that point in the game).

It was also difficult to level up for Whitney's gym in GSC (riddled with low-level Fighting-resists such as Drowzee and Nidoran) - in HG/SS, they bumped the levels up of wild Pokémon near Goldenrod, so it levels up better at that point in the game too.

Quagsire has several advantages ,especially over the Nidos, that could place it in High. The Nidos don't even have access to any Moon Stone in GS prior to credits, but for the sake of the argument let's say you went out of your way to get the Moon Stone in the FLASH chamber of the Ruins of Alph in Crystal.

-The moment you catch Wooper, it has access to both STABs (Water Gun and Mud-Slap) to help pull it through.
-It is one of the better Pokemon to use against Whitney due to its Rock resistance and Mud-Slap, so even a male Quagsire can tango with Miltank. If Miltank decides to get annoying with Milk Drink, you can Tail Whip her until Slam/Headbutt do enough to 2HKO her.
-Upon reaching Ecruteak, Quagsire would already have Dig and more importantly Surf, which grants it a much stronger move to use that the Nidos don't have. Granted, its speed means it would have issues with the Ghosts but it can Surf most to death instead of taking double the damage from Curse by Digging (which the Nidos have to do).
-On the sea, while Quagsire's low Speed and lack of Poison-typing means it can get poisoned from time to time, the Nidos have to worry about Bubblebeams, meaning they can't take on everything in the sea.
-While Quagsire doesn't resist Chuck's Fighting moves, at least it isn't weak to Water.
-Jasmine is a complete joke for the most part (bar bs Supersonics), even Steelix won't do much with Iron Tail.
-STAB Earthquake at Level 35??!!??
-Quagsire fares much better against Pryce due to Ice neutrality and also Water STAB.
-The only thing Rocket Grunts possess that pose a legitimate threat are Glooms and Vileplumes. While the Nidos do fare better against them in that regard, Quagsire can plow through everyone with Surf & Earthquake alone.
-Guess who can take on Kingdra and who can't?
-Quagsire admittedly can't do that much to Will, but it lacks a Psychic weakness so it can OHKO Jynx provided it doesn't get Kissed. Also Exeguttor lacks Grass moves for some reason.
-Keep Quaggy away from Ariados's Giga Drain, otherwise you're fine against Koga.
-Kill the Onix and Hitmonchan no problem, match of brute force against Bruno's team otherwise.
-KOes Houndoom and Gengar easily (watch out for Destiny Bond), but stay away from Vileplume duh.
-Ice Punch the Dragons duh, but one of the Dragonites carries Blizzard so Nido better be careful. Quaggy KOes Charizard with ease too.

First Wooper: I have done several run throughs of GSC (not HGSS) with Wooper and have not noticed its low speed hurting it that much. Rocket Weezings using explosion is something that happens like once a game, its not breaking a very useful poke's utility (and Quagsire can survive an explosion unless its seriously under-leveled or low on health). As for its comparison to the Nidos and the point that normals are better for Marty - that's not the point of in game tiers for an efficient run through as far as I understand it its not abt 1 pokemon outclassing another, its abt - "I want to use this pokemon, how will it work for me?" The answer for Wooper is that you get this pokemon very early (when you need more good pokes) and that it works well the whole game through. I will now answer some of your comparisons's to the nidos only to show that it should be in the same tier as them: More punches? Shadowball? Wooper gets stab attacks (the nidos do not learn dig in GSC) and ice punch, which together do SE damage to a ton of pokes, and when they aren't doing SE damage it still get STAB surf and dig! Also surf and dig destroys Marty (basically everything Punchshroom said). Rollout is not a joke on wooper. It may be slow but it is bulky. Rollout will destroy whatever you need it to (you're not using rollout for every single fight, just against gym leaders and other trainers with long rosters. Rollout is also useful against bulky pokemon like Whitney's miltank cause it gets strong fast).

Think of Wooper this way: While Vaporeon and Lapras are both better in some ways, you may not get one until post E4 unless you Fisherman Tully decides he loves you, and you have to go out of you way, and make sure its a friday at least before Jasmine, to get the full utility out of the other who levels up noticeably slowly. Like depressingly slowly. Wooper has none of these problems. It is always useful. It easy to find and train. The very fact that it can be compared to the Nidos and to Vappy/Lapras indicates that it can fulfill multiple very useful roles in your team. Its place is among these minor giants of GSC, in the high tier. Also it is nice to hug while sleeping.

Now Scyther: How am I overstating scyther's strengths? When you catch scyther you have literally caught one of the bulkiest pokemon you have access to until you get final evolutions. That incredibly bulky pokemon also has 110 attack and 105 speed. It is also gains exp levels pretty fast. It needs 1 tm to slaughter everything that isn't a ghost, rock, or steel ($2000 is nothing to spend for that kind of utility I have never been short on cash at this point in the game - I always buy headbutt for scyther so my starter has it too - what else are you buying?) and another TM to get a stab attack that is useful once in a blue moon. Scyther's worst point is that Whitney's rollout makes it risky against her. Even still headbutt will do decent damage against Miltank and with a lucky flinch you have a chance of beating her. (a note: furry cutter is fine to teach scyther, and is useful against Whitney actually, because you can set up on Clefairy and then do a ton of damage to Miltank (wooper can do a similar thing with rollout btw) I just hardly ever found myself using it when headbutt was always a 1-2 HKO). If the risky of rollout on Miltank plus Jasmine takes it out of top then I guess I could live with that. But it can beat every other badge besides Jasmine (I agree that there are way easier ways to beat Marty though). Also it runs through the late game in a way that no other pokemon besides Abra, Toto and the legends can. I also have no idea how anyone could find it hard to level up before whitney - that is the opposite of my many experiences using it. It gains a ton of levels in her gym... also why are fighting resists a problem for scyther? You are just headbutting everything to death...

The point with scyther is first headbutt destroys everything, then when it might seem weakish wing attack comes, then when that seems weakish you get swords dance. That makes scyther extremely useful at each point in the game and I think you're failing to see the utility of swords dance in the late game. Finally, I could be wrong here, but it seems to me that the utility of being able to take on dragons at Blackthorn and the e4 with a pokemon that also makes the rest of the game very easy is worth a ton. The only other pokemon that can boast that kind of ease of use are Totodile & Abra (who also costs $ to teach tms and is in top). Also, I agree that Technician scyther is way stronger than non-tech scyther and I'm sorry that I made this point confusingly. What I was trying to get across is that the difference in power between gsc scyther and other top gsc in-game pokemon is not as big as the dif between gsc and hsss scyther, because while scyther got technician, most every pokemon got stronger too (like dig for the nidos, for example). This point is probably not worth the confusion it could cause though.

Quagsire has several advantages ,especially over the Nidos, that could place it in High. The Nidos don't even have access to any Moon Stone in GS prior to credits, but for the sake of the argument let's say you went out of your way to get the Moon Stone in the FLASH chamber of the Ruins of Alph in Crystal.

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You can a Moon Stone in G/S immediately after beating Morty (as soon as you can Surf outside of battle). From that point and onwards, you have a huge movepool featuring Thrash/Body Slam/TM-HM normals, Surf, Shadow Ball and three punches, running off a better offence than what Quagsire offers.

-It is one of the better Pokemon to use against Whitney due to its Rock resistance and Mud-Slap, so even a male Quagsire can tango with Miltank. If Miltank decides to get annoying with Milk Drink, you can Tail Whip her until Slam/Headbutt do enough to 2HKO her.

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A whole lot of Pokemon have access to Mud-Slap and/or Sand-Attack. Nidorino also gets Leer, Mud-Slap and even a SE Double Kick, and lacking a rock weakness can be seen as an advantage when Rollout takes 3 turns to beat Stomp in damage, is innately less accurate and does not flinch.

-Upon reaching Ecruteak, Quagsire would already have Dig and more importantly Surf, which grants it a much stronger move to use that the Nidos don't have. Granted, its speed means it would have issues with the Ghosts but it can Surf most to death instead of taking double the damage from Curse by Digging (which the Nidos have to do).

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Nidos also have the same move right after Morty and will KO some of the same Pokemon without taking damage before that. Nidos do not Dig in this gen so yeah, they're doing nothing against Morty (unless you're one kinky MF and like taking it slowly with Mud-Slap).

-On the sea, while Quagsire's low Speed and lack of Poison-typing means it can get poisoned from time to time, the Nidos have to worry about Bubblebeams, meaning they can't take on everything in the sea.

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You need to try kinda hard to get poisoned on the sea, I think. Nidoking will see less Bubblebeams and other attacks due to going first and OHKOing with Thunderpunch or Thrash.

In other words, you're reminding us that Quagsire is a water-type. Except it's a slow one without a good special attack stat (and we don't even have speedier specially folks like Golduck up there in High tier for whatever reason).

Neither Nidoroyal nor Quagsire has a good matchup against Poliwrath, but at least Nidoking laughs at Primeape more and can help weaken/finish off 'wrath with Thunderpunch - situational use is still better than trying to solo with Quagsire (which can fail in many ways when you're slow, hit hard and vulnerable to two statuses when going second).

Like I said before, the expected levels for a full team tackling the E4 is ~L38-39, so Quagsire doesn't spend nearly as much extra time with EQ as anybody else. Bonus points for actually not wanting the TM though.

-The only thing Rocket Grunts possess that pose a legitimate threat are Glooms and Vileplumes. While the Nidos do fare better against them in that regard, Quagsire can plow through everyone with Surf & Earthquake alone.

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I'm 99% sure Earthquake won't exist during any of the Rocket fights. Nidos will do better everywhere due to being faster (all those Hyper Fangs, Bites and other things common in Rocket fights add up to severe damage faster than you abstain mentioning).

Oh right, a water-type! Except just about any of them that resists water has a better Kingdra matchup than Quagsire (who will not outspeed Dragonairs and not deal significant damage to them with Ice Punch due to having a subpar sp. atk stat).

-Quagsire admittedly can't do that much to Will, but it lacks a Psychic weakness so it can OHKO Jynx provided it doesn't get Kissed. Also Exeguttor lacks Grass moves for some reason.

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Jynx isn't nearly that easy to OHKO. But yeah, Quagsire is at least taking one Psychic (and not doing a whole lot back) while Nidos have difficulty doing the same, but neither mon is suitable here aside from helping out the rest.

You forgot to compare him to Nidos here, who do all that + aren't afraid of Ariados (though Venomoth could be taken out with just about anybody else who takes less damage from Psychic). I guess its 4x resistance to poison is worthy mentioning here since we've already begun picking out random details?

-Kill the Onix and Hitmonchan no problem, match of brute force against Bruno's team otherwise.

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So Quagsire is an unremarkable slow water-type; meanwhile Nidos resist all the fighting type moves (I'd stay away from Hitmontop though, but anybody can deal with Hitmontop while few are more comfortable going up against Machamp than Nidos are).

-Ice Punch the Dragons duh, but one of the Dragonites carries Blizzard so Nido better be careful. Quaggy KOes Charizard with ease too.

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Lance isn't Nidos' best performance at all; yet Quagsire mostly just does what any other water-type would, except worse (provoking Aerodactyl to use Hyper Beam though, which has some merit). It's also borderline 2HKO'd by Zard's Flamethrower while definitely not OHKOing with Surf, so that matchup is hardly what I would call 'easy'.

tl;dr Quagsire is a slow water-type that wishes it were faster and did the things water-types are supposed to do (that is, use water and ice type moves proficiently) more qualitatively. For being so slow, it lacks Graveler's great (on many occassions anyway) typing, so Quagsire users spend more time watching enemies attack, healing Quagsire and hoping there are no status annoyances. It's true that Quagsire doesn't have something explode in its face every battle, but feeling its low speed nearly every fight is painful and for something so slow it could be both offensively and defensively more impressive (remember our assessment of RBY Lax ingame, not to mention Geodude?).

You can a Moon Stone in G/S immediately after beating Morty (as soon as you can Surf outside of battle). From that point and onwards, you have a huge movepool featuring Thrash/Body Slam/TM-HM normals, Surf, Shadow Ball and three punches, running off a better offence than what Quagsire offers.

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That's weird, nothing about Moon Stone has suggested it can be found in where I would presume to be Mt. Mortar (because that place is annoying to explore and thus I rarely venture into it), as the only locations it is said to be found before Kanto is Ruins of Alph, nowhere else, so correct me if I'm wrong.

It is also well established that the Nidos are pretty much beasts as far as in-game is concerned. Quagsire's offensive stats aren't the best (though its Attack is close to Nidoking's and better than Queen's), but STAB Surf means its Special Attack isn't gone to waste either. STAB Earthquake at such an early level is its main selling point (Lv 35 vs Graveler's Lv 41). Graveler's typing can be hit or miss: it either does great or flops in most situations, but Quagsire doesn't really fear much of anything outside of Grass moves. Most things that can hurt Quagsire enough without Grass moves (i.e Jynx and Houndoom) are dealt with an STAB Earthquake to the face, meaning Quaggy can hold its own in most fights. I will concede that its speed prevents it from plowing through the stronger trainers though.

If worst comes to worst, Quagsire does make an excellent HM slave: no other Pokemon in the game knows Surf, Strength, Waterfall and Whirlpool (Slowpoke lacks the latter two) bar Lugia, but lol . So if the likes of Farfetch'd can make High tier in the RBY tier-list, why can't Quagsire, that can be either a good HM slave or a combat-worthy Pokemon at once, make High too?

With HM slaves on the subject, how would Furret's access to Cut, Surf and Strength put it in the Rankings? (Granted it can't retaliate well, but still...)

You can backtrack to Tohjo Falls to obtain an early Moon Stone. Sure, it's kinda time-consuming, but not anymore than forcing a stone in Crystal or catching a legendary (you have a bike and repels by that point).

By offensive stats I mean the sum of attacking options available in tandem with base speed, which shows why Nidoqueen has an offensive lead against Quagsire in spite of his slightly higher base attack.

The EQ level argument I've already addressed - it learns it around the same time anybody does via the TM, only worthwhile if you want two EQ users (kind of a waste IMO, since Lance has a full team of fliers and Rockets and ghosts are mostly all gone).

In a run with a full team (maybe team + 1 slave) and no grinding, Quagsire will be hit heavily by just about anything - really, Houndoom's Crunch is a threat but Machamp's Cross Chop is not? Everything on Will's team 2HKOs Quag, for example. How Quagsire is different from everybody else is that all those things that you say do not hurt it much will hit it anyway (I guess a held Quick Claw will help out 1/4th of the time), and a combination of any 2-3 of them, against the tougher enemies, will prove enough to take Quaggy down. Graveler's niche is that its typing leaves it with enough opponents to switch into completely safely (Thundernite, Aerodactyl, some of Koga's mons), while Quagsire doesn't really block a whole lot outside of electrics and generic water-types' checks (whom I haven't seen you defending).

Farf's definitely not in High due to his HM slave utility - we've agreed he makes a great fighter due to accelerated growth, Slash and setup options.

Quagsire's HM utility is actually not unique, and you're misleading us by saying he's the only one to learn Strength and all 3 water-type HMs because Golduck, Poliwhirl, Azumarill and Gyarados all happen to do the same. Kingler and Feraligatr learn Cut instead of Whirlpool, which is also comparable. Personally I don't think HM slave services should be taken into account when it comes to fighting, as you can carry one around covering the HM moves your active team lacks (most likely, somebody will appreciate Strength and Surf for inbattle purposes alone) without having to make it fight. Otherwise, if all slaves are assumed to fight, 90% of all teams would be training a Fearow (whose being underappreciated I'm waiting for somebody to bring up again).

Quagsire's HM utility is actually not unique, and you're misleading us by saying he's the only one to learn Strength and all 3 water-type HMs because Golduck, Poliwhirl, Azumarill and Gyarados all happen to do the same. Kingler and Feraligatr learn Cut instead of Whirlpool, which is also comparable. Personally I don't think HM slave services should be taken into account when it comes to fighting, as you can carry one around covering the HM moves your active team lacks (most likely, somebody will appreciate Strength and Surf for inbattle purposes alone) without having to make it fight. Otherwise, if all slaves are assumed to fight, 90% of all teams would be training a Fearow (whose being underappreciated I'm waiting for somebody to bring up again).

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I'm sorry, I meant to say Quagsire is one of the most easily obtainable of the lot (you need Surf just to get Psyduck derp, while Azumarill is rare as f**k), though I will admit Gyarados is likely better as a HM slave. I also didn't say the slaves should be fighting, I said that if you aren't using it for battle, it can still do HM duty (a big reason why Farfetch'd is High in RBY). In terms of combat, Quagsire is better than Gyarados since Gyara's offensive movepool is pretty shit in this gen (no Earthquake, & its most powerful physical attacks are Normal-type), so in terms of both battling and supporting ability Quagsire is still pretty well-rounded.

Gyarados's high attack and acceptable speed still make it way better than Quagsire for the vast majority of battles. It also comes at a level advantage and tanks some tricky mons very effectively.

Psyduck lurks around in Ilex Forest in Crystal, but the big advantage he has over Quagsire as a "pure slave" is that Psyduck can learn 4 HMs + Flash unevolved while Wooper needs to evolve (an unused slave is more efficient than one you have to train up just to slave for you).

Golduck is a great Pokemon as an HM slave in Crystal at least (in the other versions, I believe you need Surf to get it). It's very convenient to have an HM slave in your main battling party (GSC is a pretty HM heavy generation), and even with full HM moves, it can still hold its own with Surf + Strength. The only disadvantage Golduck really has compared Feraligatr is that you get it at level 7 after Gym 2, which may or may not cripple its usage based on how we're judging for these tiers. However, it helps that you don't have to baby Psyduck as much as some other pre-evolutions, meaning it's not as much of a hassle to raise as some other pre-evolutions. It's worth noting that a lot of people would probably choose to use the Red Gyarados over it though, as you don't have to grind it (and it's a big flashy Red Gyarados, cmon...).

By the way, regular Gyarados sucks in this generation compared to the red one (and in RSE/FRLG too) because you don't learn Thrash naturally upon level up for some reason. That's something I never liked about the old generations--raising a Magikarp is supposed to be one of the more rewarding classic experiences in Pokemon, but wild caught Gyarados are actually much better than raised ones until Gen IV.

Well, luckily we don't have to consider raising a Magikarp in this game.

I think the wild Golduck you can catch while surfing is a lot more desirable than an underlevelled Psyduck with movepool issues. No level issues and you get Surf (Psyduck having Ice Punch access makes him easy enough to level assuming he is caught earliest though) to start destroying everything on the way.